Nasz Dom

The following Interview with Anton Long was conducted near Narnell’s Rock on the Long Mynd, sometime late last month (November 115yf).

Q: Is it correct that the ONA has had an influx of Initiates as a result of ONA material being on the Internet? Does this prove the efficacy of the Internet as far as the ONA is concerned?

A: “Influx” is rather an exaggeration. There have been some individuals who have contacted various ONA Initiates as a result of the Internet, and a few of these have been given guidance by one or more of our Adepts.

But the Internet has caused some problems in weeding out the undesirables who might waste our time, so we have had to change and adapt some of the hidden tests, and suspend, a few years ago, what was a very unofficial ONA web-site which went by a rather mis-understood name. But we will not have any permanent official or even semi-official web-sites on this Internet, now and in the immediate future, due to the nature of this Internet itself, although, of course, we may well, for a short period of causal time and at a certain causal time or times, once again use such a medium to achieve a certain limited causal goal or goals, if such a usage serves certain sinister purposes, aiding Chaos and The Sinister Dialectic.

Q: Can you explain?

A: In former times – shall we say, pre-pre-Internet! – those who saught to find some guidance, some genuine knowledge of the Dark Tradition faced many difficulties. There was the problem of most of the tradition being publicly inaccessible. There was the problem of finding an Initiate of the tradition. This meant that only the most determined succeeded in gaining access to the tradition – that those who were guided already possessed something of the right character; the true Satanic spirit. Even after finding an Initiate, these novices were given many tests, unknown to them, so that only the most tenacious, the most insightful, did not give up.

Of course, sometimes people of the right character were invited by an Initiate, but even these were given tests, as I myself was.

Yet this was only the beginning for these novices. Many more tests awaited – some practical; others, not. For instance, the novice was always expected to work some things out for themselves – to apply reason; to apply their learning; to develop their intuition, and of course their magickal skills. Let us not forget these magickal skills! Particularly that empathy which developes from having undergone practical magickal workings and having run a Temple – a Nexion in esoteric ONA-speak! – for many, many months and having undertaken dark ceremonial rituals. How many, for instance, of the modern poseurs, even understand Dure ceremonial? How many, for instance, would have to look that word up via the Internet? [Anton Long laughs.]

Q: Can you give one example of what a novice was expected to work out for themselves?

A: That even this has to be explained is indicative of out times. But yes, I will give an example. Concerning the oral and recorded tradition itself. The novice was given various MSs, and told many traditions, and was expected to work through them in a critical way – for instance, in respect of the Dark Gods. The reality – what sometimes passes for truth in the causal during some causal presencing or other – was thus more often than not discovered by them, and confirmed by the one who was guiding them.

This in itself brings us to an interesting point. What has been made public, by us, especially that which has found its way onto the Internet, is not everything. There are things that even the most advanced (in years) Internal Adept does not yet know – for they cannot know until they reach the stage where what they would know would make sense to them. That is, that they have arrived at the level, of experience, and knowledge, when they can understand and appreciate and act upon that still, for them, undiscovered knowledge. They, in their turn, will impart that to he, or she, whom they guide, when their own time is right. It is rather like – to use a classic example – trying to impart an understanding of partial differential calculus to someone who has not even studied geometry or algebra.

So – in a small way, we have created some tests to apply to what is available on the Internet, as we have, on occasion, presented opportunities there for the sagacious, for those with at least some of the required qualities and of some magickal ability or instinct – opportunities limited in causal time. One or two have enquired as a result of such opportunities. Yet this meager response – and the general level of stupidity – has dismayed some of our Adepts, who had perhaps hoped for more from this Internet. That is, they had hoped all the information easily accessible might lead to the production of more than the few Initiates created – or rather, drawn to us – by such modern means. Whether we will continue with such opportunities is now open to debate – and may be, by us, debated at some Sunedrion or other, soon.

Q: So, you are saying – or seem to be saying – that the Internet is a bad thing from the esoteric point of view?

A: It has had some benefits, for us and others like us, in regard of disseminating ideas, and information, and gaining the interest of a few novices, some of whom have gone on to follow our Dark Tradition.

But it has also many negative aspects, one of which is that it allows, and tolerates, poseurs and boasters – those who write, but do not know, who have little real practical experience of darkness, of evil, and who so clearly lack the self control of the genuine seeker.

There are also, it seems from information I have received, those who pontificate about the ONA but who so clearly cannot get beyond basics and who spew forth their hurriedly-arrived-at-conclusions after having used the Internet as their basic source of esoteric information. Some of the traps set for novices have indeed caught them!
One positive aspect is that it has allowed the wide dissemination of various ONA MSs, as it has sometimes functioned, and can still, occasionally perhaps, function as one means of posing certain questions, and presenting certain clues, to those who might be interested in our Way, as one modern means of encouraging again that genuine personal seeking and questioning which all genuine Adepts know is the beginning of their esoteric development.

Q: There has been some criticism of the ONA – on the Net, I might add – especially about “traditions” and the like, and claims of the non-originality of many ONA traditions. Would you like to comment?

A: Most of what needs to be said about this has been said, or written, by me over the decades, even in my previous answer to your earlier question, given here on this beautiful, quite warm, Autumnal morning.

Criticism is irrelevant to us. We exist; we have existed; we will exist – since our methods are personal. That is, our Way is the Way of the defiant strong individual. We provide only guidance, if and when required. The aim is the creation of strong, self-willed, disciplined, evolved human beings – a real Satanic character. Those who are of us – already or potential or waiting – are those who do not accept; they are those who question; who do not seek a Master or a Mistress or even a Tradition. Here is one key – we are, and are not, a Tradition.

There is really enough genuine information available now for some, a few, to use that information to forge ahead on their own, making their own mistakes, and learning from them, and filling in the gaps we have left: of the things not made public.

But we shall continue as we have in the past – drawing to us those few who are necessary. The rest are quite irrelevant to us. Their opinions; their so-called judgement; their assumptions; their personal attacks, are all irrelevant. Often, most if not all who venture such criticism are still trapped in the self-delusion of the causal – often in the lowest realms even before that of novice.

What many have not understood it seems is that after a true passing of the Abyss, the new Master or Mistress becomes their own Way, building upon the creative or practical but always original work they began as an Internal Adept.

To paraphrase what one of our Initiates recently wrote, somewhere: the sinister tradition, indeed all genuine esoteric traditions, are living beings. They have beginnings; they grow; they change; they evolve. Their genesis can be manifold, as can their offspring. As for originality – what, esoterically, is this? And who really cares if something is useful, or is changed and becomes even more useful, in terms of aiding the Sinister Dialectic and the production of Adepts? One might go further and pose a question the novice sub-human poseurs ignore or even cannot begin to fathom in an esoteric sense – and this is, what is an individual and how does an individual relate to what, being acausal, is the genesis of all magick and especially that darkness, that Chaos, that evolves us, of which personal creativity is but a causal and limited presencing? Thus, those who pose such questions about originality and such things do so from their own low level, and this low level is Aeonically irrelevant to us. Those who understand this, my answer, do understand it; those who do not are ignored anyway – and not only by us – unless and until they begin the questioning which is the beginning of all genuine magick. If they cannot be bothered to so question the question and those who ask, and particularly question themselves, then they have failed, in both causal and acausal terms.
There is also, be it known, much laughter here, by me and a few others, at the antics of the obsessed ones who scurry about seeking answers to questions they do not even understand or query. A laughter, because some things, some questions, were crafted in such a way to bring such obsessions and scurrying and misunderstandings and this laughter itself. For we are changelings: of ourselves, and of other things.

Q: I know it may not be important but there has been some speculation as to the meaning of the words Nasz Dom as used by the ONA. Can you explain them?

A: No! [Anton Long laughs again.] Only joking! Esoterically, it was, and is, the name for one of our Nexions – or Temples or whatever to the uninitiated – that happens to have gathered near a place of that name in Shropshire. Once, there were several such Nexions in that particular area, one being near Black Rhadley. They were never large, sometimes of only four or so members. Now, there are but two such Nexions in the whole of Shropshire, one being of only two people.
Q: Have you any advice to those who might guide new Initiates?

A: Remember the darkness – that our Way is indeed Satanic and involves practical experience of the sinister, of going to and beyond one’s limits, in everything. One aspect of this is Aeonic Insight Roles; another is culling. Another is to test them regularly until they have acquired sufficient self-insight and esoteric understanding. And so on.

Those who have gone along the Dark Path sometimes forget – in their experience of decades or whatever – what it was like to be a novice, as they often tend to forget the need for dark, dangerous, challenging practical experiences, in the real world. They must return to where they themselves once were. They must view the novice in the path of the novice; the External Adept as an External Adept. This is not an easy thing to do, which is why of course that real teachers of our tradition are few.

Remember also the Aeonic aspect – that there are dimensions beyond the causal; that there is a new way of apprehension which magick leads us toward; that there is a new human type waiting to be born, waiting to evolve; that there is a Cosmos, out there, waiting for us to manifest our Destiny; that this Earth is only a beginning.

As for Initiates and Adepts, they should recall their own life in the context of the Sinister Dialectic, striving to Chaos, to presence, to change. Exult; laugh – cry. But above all never be content, and strive always to be a source of confusion, of perplexity, to the mundane ones trapped by their own shallowness born from the ethos of their times, whether they know it or not, and mostly they do not know it.